


if they did not melt

by goshemily



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Apocalypse, Fairy Tales, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/pseuds/goshemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the trope meme, for the "apocalypse" prompt:</p>
<p>
  <i>Everything's cold, now.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	if they did not melt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eudaimon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/gifts).



Everything’s cold, now. It’s not apocalyptica anymore, and there’s not a sky of ash. That was the first day.

Now it’s the kind of cold that sits in teeth and in bones, and Nate remembers the summer his mother read him the story of the White Witch. It was never the story of Lucy or Edmund or any of the children, only her; Nate is assured that ultimately, every story is about the fuck up of command.

 _Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes_ he thinks, and can’t feel his fingers inside layers of gloves. He squints against the sun on the white before him, and keeps walking, and keeps walking.

*

This is a story about a snow king, too, and about lost brothers.

This is a story about finding your way because you must.

*

Once upon a time, it was so hot that Nate saw water instead of sand. Those mirages went as quickly as Brad’s smile, but he still looks for them.

*

The end was easy to see coming, the world spinning toward an early grave. _And still it is_ Nate thinks and keeps walking.

He stops sometimes at settlements, the few outposts left, and trades labor or a story for any kind of shelter. It’s a long way from Maryland to California, looking for the boy with a shard of glass in his heart.

Sometimes he’s chased away. Sometimes he hides. At night alone he weighs a fire against being found in the dark.

*

“You know,” said Brad, thousands of miles away and a decade at least ago, “I think I should be insulted that you want to plant roses.”

Nate knelt before him, trowel in one hand. “I think you can handle it,” he said. “I think I can probably make it up to you.”

Nate planted vegetables too, and Brad surfed in the mornings, and if Nate’s dreams were too real then Brad woke him and held him.

*

It just became harder. That’s how simple the end was; it just became harder. Brad got more silent, and Nate got more loud, and they never met in the middle. They were cold enough not to hurt anymore.

They didn’t know what cold was, then, or at least not the kind of cold that stays.

Now, Nate keeps walking from Baltimore with nothing but a compass and a book of maps. He wants to know if Brad’s alive. He wants to know if their house still has roses. He wants not to be cold.

He hopes.

*

In California, he finds Brad standing by the frozen shore of the Pacific.

In California, Brad smiles again.

**Author's Note:**

> The title and the story shape are borrowed from Hans Christian Andersen's _The Snow Queen_ , a translation of which is [here](http://www.online-literature.com/hans_christian_andersen/972/).
> 
> Nate quotes Wilfred Owen's "[Anthem for Doomed Youth](http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html):" _Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes / Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes._


End file.
